I think there is a connection between congenital analgesia and an ugly weird-looking face, and I think this is further evidence that Adam Lanza had this very rare condition. Both of Adam’s parents look normal, but Adam didn’t.

Before this Newtown massacre, people have wondered whether those with congenital analgesia feel the same amount of empathy for others. Perhaps a person with this condition, who also has Asperger’s syndrome, has a complete lack of normal human empathy and therefore is more likely to commit such a heinous crime.

Dr. Wendy Roberts says the vast majority of people with Asperger’s “are real law abiders, and I think that’s the most important message.”

“There is no good evidence that any targeted violence is associated with Asperger’s,” said Roberts, a developmental pediatrician and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto.

In fact, until Friday, Adam was a very law abiding person just like the vast majority of others with Asperger’s. People are confusing different types of violent behavior. Aspies do not engage in the kind of criminal behavior typical of blacks which Lawrence Auster often blogs about. Mass shootings and certain other types of violent behavior like what serial killers do are driven by a completely different kind of psychology. The typical person who commits these crimes is described as a loner and usually with other adjectives which overlap Asperger’s syndrome.

"In fact, until Friday, Adam was a very law abiding person just like the vast majority of others with Asperger’s. People are confusing different types of violent behavior. Aspies do not engage in the kind of criminal behavior typical of blacks which Lawrence Auster often blogs about. Mass shootings and certain other types of violent behavior like what serial killers do are driven by a completely different kind of psychology. The typical person who commits these crimes is described as a loner and usually with other adjectives which overlap Asperger’s syndrome."

Half Sigma, this may turn out to be your best insight ever. I too have been confused by the fact that blacks (who are supposed to be high in violent crime) seem to be underrepresented among the most violent crimes, while people who are the opposite of blacks (East Asians, nerdy whites) are overrepresented among mass killers.

Perhaps it's just a result of K selected genotypes (East Asians, nerdy whites, aspergoids) lashing out after a life time of being bullied by muscular sexually potent r selected genotypes (blacks, white jocks, prole psychos)

It may also be a horrific evolutionary strategy. Some people might be so K selected that they will never be able to compete with r genotypes for mates so instead of enhancing their genetic fitness by having kids, they simply lower the genetic fitness of rival gene pools by killing them, which has the same net effect. Nature is ugly.

Well, you can basically thank the Christian-liberal taboo on designer babies, eugenics and genetic engineering for the massacre. If Adam had been prettier and healthier, this would never have happened.

When Christian morality comes biting you back in the ass... hilarious.

One possibility is that the gene(s) that are broken in congenital analgesia are pleiotropic for facial development. Another possibility is that people with congenital analgesia get injured a lot, and the scarring, bruising, broken noses, etc. make them look a bit different. Guy in the first link on this that you had chewed part/most/all? through his tongue. I read about a little girl with CA who ended up putting out an eye just by accident.

Something all three of the people have in common is that they look as if they could be mentally retarded, although they're not. It's especially apparent in the picture of the girl as a young child. If I saw that picture and weren't told anything further, I would be almost certain that she had Down Syndrome.

I think what you're seeing is just the typical faces of flyover America. The smart and the beautiful move to the coasts..people from NYC or LA would probably be shocked at all the ugly people in the rest of the country.

Adam's elementary school pic shows a normal-looking, cute kid. I'd be interested in knowing when the odd behavior became obvious to all and in knowing if the physical "look" matched the growing neurological deficits.

Great insights here, half sigma. Baron Cohen has demonstrated that empathy is reduced in people on the Autism spectrum (his new book is called Zero degrees of empathy). He differentiates it from the psychopathic reduction of empathy though, they are not the same.
Plus, there is quite a bit of evidence showing that your own pain processing regions are involved in feeling empathy for others, for example as described in this article's abstract - http://ilabs.washington.edu/meltzoff/pdf/05JacksonMeltzoff_NeurIm.pdf
This is a fascinating subject. Mike Gazzaniga of UC Santa Barbara has something called the Law and Neuroscience project, which tries to figure out what to do in court in cases like this.

I noticed a lot of people are saying that Adam Lanza had a very long "midface" (the vertical distance between one's brow and lip). A study a few years back suggested that shorter midfaces relative to head size is seen as more desirable, particularly in males.

It's also interesting others have noted that other killers have had similar traits, like Tim McVeigh and Dylan Klebold (in contrast to Eric Harris who was much better looking). Also look at Lanza's tech club photo...it seems a lot of nerdy guys have that look. Only one guy in the photo was above average in looks. You could easily tell which one.

In hs, I took a mythology class and was the only sports playing guy there, and the class seemed to be full of these long-featured, crescent moon chinned Mark Zuckerberg look alikes. One commentator here said Zuckerberg wouldnt have much luck with women based on his face alone. And he's not even that ugly per se, he just has the wrong kind of face.

This of course, does not mean that guys who are not male model look alikes are all gonna go on shooting sprees, but with "fat acceptance" and female hypergamy on the rise, women's standards are up it seems, and its a bad time for a guy to be below average, or even average, in looks.

I used to think the incel guys saying this were crazy but im hearing the same story all over the internet and among the heartiste crowd. Can't help but wonder how these guys tagged by girls as lower beta and omega males (thus being unacceptable) are gonna react knowing they will never get married.

....yet more evidence a 6:4 female to male ratio is ideal for society and that the Chinese are gender blithering idiots.

"Perhaps it's just a result of K selected genotypes (East Asians, nerdy whites, aspergoids) lashing out after a life time of being bullied by muscular sexually potent r selected genotypes (blacks, white jocks, prole psychos)

It may also be a horrific evolutionary strategy. Some people might be so K selected that they will never be able to compete with r genotypes for mates so instead of enhancing their genetic fitness by having kids, they simply lower the genetic fitness of rival gene pools by killing them, which has the same net effect. Nature is ugly. "

This isn't a subconscious or rational Darwinian strategy aimed at enhancing the relative fitness of one's ensemble of genes; this is the machinations of a dysfunctional mind -- his phenotype being the result of complex interactions between his genotype and environment. It has nothing to do with the parameters of the Verhulst differential equation, which describes the population growth dynamics of a species, not phenotypic traits of individuals within a given species . In a Darwinian sense, the genes collectively contributing towards Adam Lanza's psychological phenotype are unfit and disadvantageous, since his "strategy" did not enhance the fitness of his relatives (kin selection) or his (non-existent) progeny.

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"

Well, you can basically thank the Christian-liberal taboo on designer babies, eugenics and genetic engineering for the massacre. If Adam had been prettier and healthier, this would never have happened.

When Christian morality comes biting you back in the ass... hilarious."

How is this a failure of Christian morality? Was Adam immersed in a genuinely Christian milieu and interacted with people who are effusing with the love of Christ and concern for the least, as opposed to acting to advanced themselves, often at the expense of others, socially and economically?

No, American culture most certainly is not Christian, despite many of its political institutions being nominally associated with Christianity. For example many "prole" and "middle class" Christians are recalcitrant racists; regard the underclass with disdain; value "hard work" that only serves to advance the economic interests of the upper classes and perpetuate an inegalitarian socio-economic system; are repressively hierarchical and prudish; are patriotic in the chauvinistic, imperialist sense; and attached to materialism and consumerism. Does love of God and our economically, socially and psychologically vulnerable neighbors eclipse the aforementioned proclivities in the United States?

We are not in the City of God, but faithful pilgrimers in the decadent City of Man, trying to serve God and emulate Christ, albeit rather imperfectly and feebly because of the inimical influence of original sin.

"Baron Cohen has demonstrated that empathy is reduced in people on the Autism spectrum (his new book is called Zero degrees of empathy). He differentiates it from the psychopathic reduction of empathy though, they are not the same."

Perhaps one could define empathy as the INTELLECTUAL capacity to UNDERSTAND how others feel, while sympathy is the EMOTIONAL capacity to FEEL how others feel, and autistics lack empathy while psychopaths lack sympathy. So a psychopath may have high social IQ but use it to manipulate and victimize others because he has no compassion, while an autistic often has compassion but lacks the social IQ to be helpful.

I suspect that as humans left Africa and evolved into more K selected genotypes, we lost some of the social IQ that our r selected ancestors needed to attract numerous sexual partners, but instead evolved higher technological IQ and greater compassion needed to create complex societies with stable families. Given this evolutionary tradeoff, one might expect the most K selected genotypes (East Asians, nerdy whites) to be at risk for diseases like autism, while r selected genotypes (blacks, white proles) are at risk for diseases like psychopathy and schizophrenia.

"In a Darwinian sense, the genes collectively contributing towards Adam Lanza's psychological phenotype are unfit and disadvantageous, since his "strategy" did not enhance the fitness of his relatives (kin selection) or his (non-existent) progeny."

Tragically he MAY have increased his genetic fitness, because he killed a lot of "normal" people, so now abnormal genes like his (autistic analgesia) are an ever so slightly higher percentage of the gene-pool. Sadly this is why evolution predisposes us to be hostile to people genetically different from ourselves (and why odd people like Adam become pariahs in the first place).

That's quite an interesting hypothesis, legendary linda. I agree with the characterization that East Asians and nerdy whites are likelier to be autism spectrum.

Some recent studies seem to suggest that schizophrenia and autism are actually more tied to male-female mind organization. One popular one found that undergrads who intended to major in the humanities were much more likely to have a relative diagnosed with mood disorders or schizophrenia, while undergrads who wanted to major in science and mathematics were much more likely to have a relative diagnosed with Autism.

"However, I disagree with the take of this article which says:" -- Half Sigma

If you're going to disagree with the experts who wrote that article you should provide some evidence. I doubt you have much personal experience with autism. So what exactly are you basing your disagreement with the doctors on?

You're also mistaken about blacks being less likely to commit mass shootings and serial killing. Blacks actually commit those crimes at a higher rate, as well. I realize that's not what you hear from the MSM but that's what the FBI reports say.

There's an oldish hypothesis that autism and schizophrenia are extreme 'male' and 'female' minds. Way back when women were more frequently diagnosed w schiz than men (I don't know why that changed), so the theory seemed better then. Male schizophrenics don't seem particularly feminine.

More modern evidence that they are 'opposite' disorders comes from brain and genetic studies. Brain areas that are enlarged in autism are reduced in schiz and vice versa. If high copy number of a gene is associated with autism, then deletions of that gene are more likely in schizophrenics.

Perhaps a better way to think about the poles is Baron-Cohen's systematizing autistic at one pole and, an relationship-oriented, anthropomorphizing animistic, solipsistic mind at the other. Schizophrenics have tons of 'spiritual' and religious delusions: they see meaning and intent, minds basically everywhere: often with themselves at the center. Autistics don't even seem to think other people have mind. From what I've heard, some autistics don't think in words much. Schizophrenics think in words to the extent that they hear voices.

"Some recent studies seem to suggest that schizophrenia and autism are actually more tied to male-female mind organization. One popular one found that undergrads who intended to major in the humanities were much more likely to have a relative diagnosed with mood disorders or schizophrenia, while undergrads who wanted to major in science and mathematics were much more likely to have a relative diagnosed with Autism."

Well I think this also may fit with what I'm saying. Although blacks are physically and temperamentally quite masculine, they are intellectually quite feminine (poor at spatial ability but relatively good at social skills, humanities, oratory, talking, writing, poetry, art, spirituality) while East Asians and nerdy whites are relatively poor in those areas but strong in traditional male domains like spatial, mathematical & technological reasoning.

I think as humans left Africa and had to survive the cold winters of Europe and especially North East Asia, our personalities became more feminine because child rearing became more complex but our intellects became more masculine (for hunting, tool making and shelter construction) and the masculinization of the brain made northern peoples especially at risk for autism, but lowered the risk of schizophrenia and psychopathy.

Actually, men are more likely than women to receive a diagnosis of schizophrenia (a quick wiki says men are 1.4 times more likely to be diagnosed). And, the main proponent of schizophrenia being an extreme version of the "female" mind is Satoshi Kanazawa (a proponent of Richard Lynn's research and probably has some clout among HBDers); this reflects the HBD bias of the hypothesis and is not a universally accepted theoretical model of schizophrenia.

Not to mention that the schizophrenia phenotype is the consequence of synergistic interactions between psychosocial stress AND genetics: one's genotype does not determine a progression to schizophrenia. Perhaps blacks are exposed to more environmental stressors and therefore have a greater risk of manifesting schizophrenic symptoms. (And the black cognitive profile is not verbally tilted... see the SAT results for 2011 http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/SAT-Percentile-Ranks-by-Gender-Ethnicity-2011.pdf; not to mention that Jews, a group whose cognitive profile is verbally oriented, would also be at high risk for schizophrenia too.)

BTW, there are several genes and pathways contributing to schizophrenia, and the HBD hypothesis should predict that blacks demonstrate greater vulnerability at the genetic level on the loci encoding members of these pathways. For instance, schizophrenia is associated with decreased AKT1 (a serine/thereonine protein kinase) and several isoforms of AKT1 have been associated with an increased vulnerability to schizophrenia.* Downstream AKT1 phosphorylates GSK3b in order to inhibit it. Higher GSK3b activity has been reported in suicide fatalities and a challenge of amphetamines in mice lead to a downregulation of AKT1 activity and upregulation of GSK3b. Upstream, dopamine receptor D2 (DRD2) antagonist activation causes downregulation of AKT1 activity via a g-protein independent mechanism: stimulation of the DRD2 causes g-protein coupled receptor kinases to phosphorylate it and subsequently beta-arrestins bind to the phosphorylated DRD2. DRD2 is then internalized and the beta-arrestin-DRD2 complex acts as a scaffold to recruit protein phosphatase 2a (PP2A) and AKT1. PP2A dephosphorylates AKT1, deactivating it. A mechanism of antipsychotic drugs, particularly the "typical" ones, act as competitive inhibitors of the DRD2 and upregulate AKT1 activity.

Moreover, decreased dorsolateral prefrontal dopaminergic activity has also been reported in schizophrenia. For instance, increased catechol-o-methylase transferase (COMT), an enzyme involved in the degradation of catecholamine (ultimately derived from the amino acid tyrosine) neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine and dopamine has been linked to schizophrenia***/#. (Prefrontal dopaminergic activity is primarily mediated by DRD1, not DRD2.) Relative to the methionine isoform, the valine allele, which is associated with greater thermostability and increased activity of COMT, is associated with impaired executive function as measured on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.

DTNBP1 is also associated with schizophrenia (and earlier with IQ, but this has association failed to replicate##. )

Here I succinctly outlined molecular mechanisms contributing to the pathology of schizophrenia. I hereby challenge you to provide genetic data showing that there is an increased frequency of the risk variants in the genes encoding the aforementioned proteins in black (or other vulnerable) populations. Come on, as HBDers, we are all empiricists here, unlike those sentimental liberals we always deride here!

Black rose, your SAT link does not appear to be working, but Jensen said in "The g Factor" that the black-white IQ gap gets bigger not only as tests become more g loaded, but also when tests load on the spatial visualization factor. This implies blacks are more verbally oriented. The SAT doesn't really measure spatial ability.

The reason I said opposite disorders and not male-female difference is because schiz is arguably more common in males now, and lots of sex differences aren't exagerated in schiz or autism: schizophrenics aren't super-interested in raising children, for example.

Though schizophrenia is a more feminine disease than autism. The m:f ratio for schizophrenia is much closer to 1 than for autism. Males are more likely to fail catastrophically in general.

From [ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121111153933.htm ] In CNVs involved in the growth of dendrites, or dendritic spines, at the ends of neurons, [Dr. Vitkup] found decrease in growth to be more common in schizophrenia and increase in growth more common in autism. "That's consistent with what's been found by postmortem brain studies," he said.

As for race: here's the population breakdown of rs4680 COMT allele. G is the 158val allele associated with higher enzyme activity and schizophrenia. Fairly large racial differences. Though as far as I can tell, the variant may not actually be related to schiz.

Enough with the anti-White male propaganda. JewAmongYou has already debunked the idea that White men are more likely to do mass shootings than the men of other races:

'Motherjones has a comprehensive analysis of the mass murders that have occurred in the U.S. since 1982. They consider a total of 62 mass murders in their analysis and write:

"...Forty four of the killers were white males..."

That comes out to about 71% of them being white males. Assuming that the male proclivity for violence is universal across races, this figure is roughly what we would expect if whites were as likely to be mass murderers as any other race. In other words, white males are no more likely to be mass murderers than other males. So all of the soul-searching about white males supposed higher risk for such crimes is for naught. Well… almost for naught. Whites are less likely to commit violent crimes than blacks or Hispanics – but, when it comes to mass killings, they are just as likely. So it’s all relative; compared to overall rates of murder, assault and rape, whites are more likely to be the culprits. But, outside of this context, no more so than anybody else.'

I'd also object to the anti-White bias of treating mass shootings like they represent a moral harm anything resembling the moral harm that comes from other forms of murder. You're far more likely to die from a non-mass murder than from a mass shooting.

They've been 62 mass shootings in America since 1982. Even if every one of these mass shootings resulted in the deaths of 27 people, that's 1,674 dead from mass shootings over the last 30 years.

It's true that unlike other forms of murder, mass shootings don't seem to be disproportionately done by Black and Latino males. However:

1. There's no evidence that White males are any more likely to do mass shootings than the men of other races.

2. The far more important and deadly form of murder is non-mass murder, the type of murder that causes far more people to die and which has rendered far more American neighborhoods uninhabitable by people who have children they care about. This type of murder is much more often committed by non-White/non-Asian men.

But yeah, go ahead and scapegoat White and Asian men for our society's problems, even though White and Asian men are actually far less likely to contribute to those problems.

I agree that schizophrenia and autism are the antithesis of each other both genetically and cognitively, but I do not think the schizophrenia is a manifestation of a dysfunctionally extreme female mind.

"As for race: here's the population breakdown of rs4680 COMT allele. G is the 158val allele associated with higher enzyme activity and schizophrenia. Fairly large racial differences. Though as far as I can tell, the variant may not actually be related to schiz."

Moreover, East Asians have the same allele frequency the "G" allele of COMT as people of black ancestry.

Black_Rose, makes sense. Baron-Cohen's hypothesis that autism is the extreme male brain is almost certainly wrong as well, even if a few autistic traits look like exaggerated male traits.

The frequency isn't higher in blacks than asians, but it is higher than in whites, and we don't really know if asians have lower or higher schiz rates.

I wonder if anyone has seen if black people diagnosed with schiz have better life outcomes than white people. It's such a devastating illness that people wrongly diagnosed, even if they have another mental illness, should have better life outcomes than people who have it.